


Habits

by 22_Ti



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Habits, bad habits, bechloe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29687358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/22_Ti/pseuds/22_Ti
Summary: One of the unrealized things about getting involved in a relationship is getting used to the other person’s annoying habits and idiosyncrasies. Can Beca and Chloe survive despite each other? Inspired by a YouTube video by Laura Prepon.
Relationships: Chloe Beale & Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Comments: 20
Kudos: 68





	Habits

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @pleaseactsurprisedxx for her beta help.

Beca Mitchell had finally made the big leagues, well bigger than before. She was barely working as a junior producer during the week. Beca was actually helping a friend change his sound when she recorded herself on tracks as an example of a sound he should adopt. When her boss caught her working off the books, Beca was afraid she’d lose her job. Instead, she was sitting in a meeting with Khaled Mohamed Khaled, stage name DJ Khaled, inking a recording deal.

All through high school, making music was all Beca Mitchell wanted to do. Her father tried to force her to attend college, but she refused, moving to Los Angeles. She did everything music-related she could. She busked on the streets, singing for tips. She sang at open mics, testing out her own songs for exposure. Beca even found a job as a substitute DJ at a small club.

One evening at her DJ gig, when the crowd was small, she had plugged in a set of her own mixes and took a seat at the bar. As she nursed her beer, she noticed a guy in a suit nodding his head with the music, grooving, obviously enjoying himself. He caught her looking at him. “Nice tunes,” he shouted over the music. Beca nodded as she drained her beer and headed back up to the DJ booth to spin live.

When she finished her set, the suit approached her and handed her a card.  _ Theo Turtel, LAMix.  _ “Nice work on the tables. Call me.” And that’s how Beca got started at the studio thus how she was now signed with DJ Khaled. He wanted to start her out small to test her, but that was okay with Beca.

The next few months were a blur and before she knew it, Beca had cut an EP and was hitting the club circuit, singing on stages, and enjoying life. Khaled then sent her on a European tour to drum up interest overseas. She’d do ten performances in seven cities over two weeks. Short and sweet. Plus, it gave her a little time to see the sights as well.

* * *

Beca arrived back in the states exhausted. She’d crammed as much in during her two weeks overseas as possible. Plus, there were the extra-curriculars. She knew from her touring around Los Angeles and San Francisco that picking up women was fairly easy. What she didn’t expect was to find an American at one of her shows in Berlin. Scanning the crowd was difficult with the bright lights shining down, but this one woman and her friend were standing right in front of the stage, off to one side.

She had fire engine red hair and the bluest eyes Beca had ever seen. She danced without abandon but always seemed to be staring at her when Beca made direct eye contact. After Beca’s first set, she found the girl and her friend waiting for drinks at the bar. The singer sidled up beside them and motioned to the bartender to bring her a beer; she then pointed at the redhead and her friend. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” the redhead giggled. “Thanks for the drinks. I love your sound.”

And that’s how Beca met Chloe. After Beca’s final set, Chloe said goodbye to her best friend and returned to Beca’s hotel room for the night. Much to her dismay, Chloe was gone the next morning before she’d even had a chance to get her number or her last name for all that mattered. All she knew was that Chloe and her friend were celebrating college graduation with a trip around Europe.

* * *

Beca returned to Los Angeles high off of her European tour – the success she had and maybe a little bit off the redhead. DJ Khaled was impressed with the popularity of his young singer and how well sales of her EP did both in the states and overseas. He tried to convince Beca to cut a full-length album. She let him know that as much fun the entire experience was – making her own songs come to life, the tour, everything – what she really wanted to do was produce.

They finally came to an agreement that Beca would work on an LP, but she’d also get to be a producer for other artists. They would negotiate Beca’s tour after the album was finished. While Beca worked on the new album, she continued to do small gigs around the city. People just couldn’t seem to get enough of her music.

One Friday evening, she was at Club Shredd, playing to a relatively packed crowd, when something or someone, rather, in the audience caught her eye. The shock of red hair was unmistakable. Chloe. Beca couldn’t finish her set fast enough and get on the dance floor before the girl disappeared again.

After Beca’s first set, she was trying to play it cool and grabbed a beer before she wandered over to where Chloe and her friends were sitting. “Hey.” She leaned up against the table. “Is this seat taken?” Of course, all the girls at the table squealed as Chloe shyly slid over and made room for the signer. “Are you enjoying yourself tonight?”

“Now I am,” Chloe demurely answered. “Ladies, I want you to meet Beca, the best American singer in Berlin and Los Angeles.”

“I thought you were kidding when you said you knew her.” One of Chloe’s friends reached over the table to shake Beca’s hand. “Chloe here  _ insisted  _ we come here tonight. She claimed she’d seen you when she was in Berlin. Of course, none of us believed that she actually knew you.”

Beca’s grin stretched across her face. “Yep, Chloe was at one of my gigs during my overseas tour.” She turned to Chloe. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

Chloe pulled out a ragged playbill with Beca’s picture from her purse.  _ Amerikaner Beca Mitchell heute Abend bei Club Cruise. _ It was from her Berlin performance. At the bottom were her website and the contact information for the club promoter. “I found this when I was unpacking. I’d been kicking myself for not getting your phone number, so imagine my surprise when I see that you are based here in Los Angeles. I followed you on Instagram and saw you had a show tonight. I’m going to grad school here, and my friends and I never pass up a good gig. And here we are.”

Beca immediately pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and handed it over. “Well let’s fix that phone number issue right now.”

The coincidence of the two women being in the same place after meeting so many thousands of miles away was uncanny. Chloe and Beca quickly became an item and soon were inseparable. Beca’s fame was slowly growing, her fanbase made up of young club-goers and college students. The best part about her gigs was there was always a blue-eyed, redheaded grad student in the audience who was her biggest cheerleader.

* * *

Beca was slowly becoming increasingly popular, especially on social media as was the way with her generation of fans. One day, Chloe was thinking about some of Beca’s less favorable habits and had an idea, something she could have fun with so people could see the true BMitch.

She stood outside their bedroom with her camera aimed at Beca who was laying in bed. “One of the things you don’t always think about when getting involved with someone is having to get used to their habits.” Chloe was stage whispering as she videoed. “For example, take BMitch here.” Chloe quietly snuck into the room and aimed the camera towards the foot of the bed. “She can be completely covered from head to toe in covers,” Chloe panned the camera up and down the lump of a body wrapped in the blanket. “But she always has to have one foot sticking out.” Chloe zooms in on Beca’s bare foot peeking from the covers. “Her ‘air-conditioning’ she calls it.” Chloe giggled. “It is so annoying since I like the blankets tucked in all the way around, but she kicks her way out so she can stick one lone foot out.”

And that’s how the Instagram war started.

* * *

A few days later, Beca came home from work and took one look at her kitchen before grabbing her phone. She started in the kitchen. “BMitch here. I see my girlfriend let you guys in on one of my sleeping habits. But get this,” She pointed to the kitchen cabinet.” One, two, three coffee cups just laying here. Two feet from the dishwasher. Speaking of annoying habits, watch this.” Beca walked to the living room. “Four, five.” Then to the bedroom. “Six.” Finally to the bathroom. “Seven. Seven coffee cups just laying around the apartment. Who even has seven coffee cups? Who even drinks that much coffee?” Beca chuckled as she flipped the camera view around to show her face. “If you think my air-conditioning at night is annoying, try picking up all the coffee cups.”

* * *

Chloe stood in the doorway to the bathroom. “Hamper,” she recorded the position of the clothes basket. “Towel rack.” She got a little huffy before scanning to the floor. “Floor.” There on the floor was a crumpled-up towel. “Within arms reach is the clothes basket and the towel rack, yet Beca Mitchell always throws her towel on the floor. She says it’s how she knows it’s dirty. Hello - hamper? Towel rack. Who says you can’t use a towel more than once?”

And this is how the relationship went. Tongue-in-cheek videos periodically exposing annoying habits and idiosyncrasies. Beca even ran a poll one time – _ Over or Under? How does your toilet paper roll? _ When the tally went her way, she released a video showing how Chloe always did the opposite. “She even changes the roll in the hotel bathroom when we are out of town!”

* * *

“I know my last video was about Chloe’s incessant jabbering to her plants. Sometimes I think she loves them more than me. Annoying, right?” Beca grinned at the camera. “I’m going to let you guys in on a little secret.” Beca leans in towards the phone’s camera. “And it’s not something that I’m proud of… I cannot keep plants alive.” She gently thwaps a branch of a Jade plant and several branches fall off. The camera flashes back to her face. “Is that normal?” Beca then holds up an ivy on which brown and dying leaves were falling down. “I mean maybe I can save this one.” She pauses. “Succulent?” She holds up a succulent and turns it over and it falls to pieces. “And who can kill a cactus? A cactus! This gal.” She points to herself and shows a brown cactus that had fallen ever in its pot.

Beca watched the video again. Satisfied, she posted it on Instagram. What were the chances Chloe would see it? That’s ridiculous. Of course, Chloe would see it. She sees everything in their bad habit battle. But this time, Beca was revealing one of her own habits. After a few minutes, Beca’s phone alerted her to an incoming Facetime call. Chloe.

“BECA! What’s going on?” Beca lifted her shoulders in a shrug trying to keep the smirk off her face. “I gave you explicit instructions on how to take care of my plants - when to water each one and how much sun they should get and when.” Chloe was livid. “We’ll talk more when I get home.” Without even letting Beca say hi, or how are you, or I love you, Chloe disconnected.

“Damn, she’s more pissed than I thought she’d be,” Beca mumbled as she stared at her phone.

* * *

Chloe came home from the field trip to D.C. with her students to find each of her plants suffering physically from some form of abuse - underwatering, overwatering, too much sun, not enough sun. She lined up her plants and began to examine them to see which were savable and which were beyond hope.

She thought for a moment as she remembered Beca’s video then pulled out her phone and began to record. Panning the camera up and down the row of dead and dying plants, Chloe started her tirade. “Look at what my girlfriend did. LOOK! I was out of town for two weeks and I come back to this. Jade plants are easy to care for. Their leaves hold water so they need to dry out between waterings. And they need a decent amount of light.” Next Chloe stuck her finger into the ivy and pulled back with a horrible look on her face. “God. Okay, that one is definitely overwatered. Ivy can’t deal with mushy dirt.” She repeated the process of analyzing her succulent and cactus. “I left Beca with explicit instructions on how to care for my plants, and just look at them.” Disgusted, Chloe turned off the video then uploaded it to social media. 

* * *

“Ahhhh, snap.” Beca kicked back in her office chair, beating her head on the back of her seat. Jessica looked at her questioningly. “Chloe just posted a video of the dead plants at the apartment. I’m in some deep trouble.”

“Sounds like you need to get an apology plant,” Jessica smirked.

“You mean flowers?” Beca wrinkled her nose at the thought.

“No, I mean a plant. You have at least four to replace, right? Flowers are already dead to start with. Go for a plant.”

“Yeah, no. I couldn’t even keep these alive. And you want me to apologize by getting something else I’m sure to murder?”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “It’s for Chloe, not you. Trust me. Pick her out a nice plant. It will do wonders for your sex life.”

“Damn it, Jess. You had to remind me that I’m probably cut off, too.” Beca released a heavy sigh. “I guess I’ll go plant shopping.”

* * *

Beca crept into the apartment hoping Chloe would be taking a nap or busy unpacking or something. The dead plants were all back in their places in various parts of the room. A pang shot through her chest knowing how much they meant to Chloe, yet Beca couldn’t keep them alive for two measly weeks. She gently put the orchid down on the kitchen island along with the box of chocolates she’d gotten for good measure. She reached into her overcoat pocket and pulled out a shiny envelope from the spa up the street. She’d stopped by and picked up a gift certificate for a full body massage and a facial. The clerk promised that was as good of an apology as a plant. Double-sorries were better, right?

After making sure her offerings were lined up just right, Beca went in search of her girlfriend. Sure enough, Chloe was curled up in the middle of their bed sleeping. Beca eased down on the bed, leaned down, and pressed her lips against Chloe’s cheeks. “Ungh,” Chloe grumbled as she pulled the thin blanket over her head. “I’m not talking to you. Mean plant hater.”

Beca chuckled as she got up to leave Chloe to sulk in peace. She changed out of her work clothes then went into the kitchen to fix dinner. Chloe had been in D.C. for two weeks where there was a three-hour time difference from Los Angeles. She had to be starving by now.

Having stopped at the grocery store on the way home from obtaining all the makings of a solid apology, Beca got to work on chicken parm, one of Chloe’s favorite homemade meals. Perfect cutlets of breaded chicken atop a bed of spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce, all smothered with mozzarella and parmesan cheese. When Beca heard Chloe stirring, she poured two glasses of Pinot Grigio and set the table perfectly with subtle candles burning in the center of their small table. She decided to not bring up the plants - old or new- and see where fate took her.

* * *

Chloe came into the kitchen area, sniffing appreciatively. She saw the orchid and chocolates on the bar. “Hmmm,” she grunted as she sat down at the table without commenting on the gifts Beca had laid out. “Dinner looks delicious. I’m famished.” 

The two had a pleasant meal with neither woman mentioning the plant massacre. Beca was perplexed, ready to shoulder whatever punishment Chloe meted out, but none came. Not a cross word one or mention of the beautiful purple and white plant Beca had painstakingly selected as a replacement perhaps for one of the unsalvagable ones.

Surprisingly, her internal clock set three hours ahead from her trip to D.C., Chloe decided to head to bed. Beca insisted on cleaning up the kitchen and washing dishes. Frankly, she was slightly disappointed nothing had been said about her apology. She kissed her girlfriend good night and promised to be in shortly to snuggle before Chloe fell asleep.

Not too long after Chloe had crawled into bed, her Instagram notification alerted her to a video posted by Beca. “I wonder what I did wrong  _ this _ time. She’s probably going to complain that i didn’t go ga-ga over the orchid and chocolates.”

Propping herself up in bed, she clicked on the video.

“Hey guys, BMitch here. So I’m sure you are all aware that I murdered four of Chloe’s plants when she was on a school trip.” The camera panned to the array of peace offerings she had spread across the bar. Zooming in on the envelope, Beca said, “let’s see. There is a spa gift certificate.” Next was the chocolates. “Lady Godiva, her favorites.” Finally, Beca’s camera landed on the beautiful orchid. “And this, my friends, is Mary. Chloe didn’t seem too appreciative of her gifts, although who can blame her? Is one flowering plant a substitute for four painfully massacred ones?” Beca turned the camera to her own face. “I think not, but I put a great deal of thought into Mary here. She has a special name and everything. I even made sure to read up on the instructions for caring for Mary. See?”

Beca zoomed through the flowers on the orchid to the tag attached close to the main stem. She reached out and tapped the tag with her forefinger. “Believe me, I have these instructions memorized… front – and back.” She touched the tag again and caused it to slowly turn. “Shhhhh, there’s more to my apology than chocolate, a trip to the spa, and Mary here. Her name was specially chosen for a reason.” Attached to the tag was a platinum engagement style ring with a huge 1.5-carat diamond solitaire. “Sometimes apologies need to be bigger than gifts.”

Chloe gasped, stopped the video, and zoomed in on the ring. Tears began to immediately stream down her face as the four dead and dying plants were long forgotten. The next thing Beca heard was a shrill scream of excitement coming from the bedroom.


End file.
